The Raven

Edgar Allan Poe

--Raven was a bird of prophecy; in western cultures, ravens have been associated with myster, evil, omens, and eath. Bird is a phrophecy and can tell the future.

End Rhyme: Similar or identicle sounds at ends of lines.
Internal Rhyme: Rhymes within in line.
Rhyme Scheme: Basic patten at the end of rhymes.
Stanza: Group of words in a poem; paragraph.

• One December night, a man hears a knock on his door around midnight. He is almost asleep.
  
• It was the ghost of Maiden Lenore, his deceased wife he thinks.
  
• He was in an excited terror & lets them in.
• As he opens the door he apoligizes for taking so long because he was almost asleep; but when he opens the door, there is nobody there.
  
• He whispers, "Lenore", and waits, but not reply.
  
• He walks back inside and hears a louder tapping, but he believes it is only the wind this time on his window.
• He flings open his drapes and there is a Raven, just sitting there.
  
• He man asks the Raven why his name is on the night's death shore, so why the Raven is bringing death to his window.
  
• All the Raven says is, "Nevermore". That was all he said and the Raven just sat there.
  
• The man says he has hope that the Raven isn't bringing him death.
• He pulls up a chair in front of the window & looks at the bird. He wonders why the threatening bird is at his house.
• The bird just stares at him. The man had no evidence to come to a conclusion why the bird was there.
  
• The man asks God to give him relief from his memory of Lenore. He drinks in hopes of these thoughts leaving him. All the Raven says is "Nevermore".
  
• The man accuses the Raven of being a prophet, of the devil and evil. Either sent by the devil or someone else, he asks if he will ever be relieved.
  
• Raven, "Nevermore".
  
• He asks the Raven why he has to continue to be sad.
  
• Raven, "Nevermore".
  
• He tells the Raven to leave.
• Raven, "Nevermore".
• The Raven is a deamon, the lamp casts the Raven's shadows on the floor as the Raven takes the man's soul, killing him.
  

The Masque of the Red Death

-->Red Death: Sharp pains, dizziness, bleeding at pores, dissolution, scarlet stains upon body, seizures

• Prince Prospero: Happy, lived in the abbey (abbey: building built to resemble a monastery). Prince designed it to have gates of iron and many other Gothic elements. Prince had but many pleasure items in the castle; ballet-dancers, buffoons, musicians, beauty & wine. These were all safe from "Red death".
  
• Prince had a masked ball, but of most unusual magnificence, Masquerade.
• Masquerade was held in seven rooms. Imperial suite, sharp turns every 20-30 yards, big Gothic windows made of stained glass, decorations.

Different chambers:
--> 1. Blue
--> 2. Purple
--> 3. Green
--> 4. Orange
--> 5. White
--> 6. Violet
--> 7. Black Velvet: Window panes color of blood, hall of velvet

• The black velvet room there was a big clock. Clock of ebony. It made a beautiful noise. Everything and everybody would stop what they were doing to listen to it ding. When it would finish, people would laugh nervously.
  
• The prince's decor was bizzare; he had a fine eye for color. He was seen as mad. He loved the grotesque.
  
• The chambers held dreams inside. When the clock dings, the dreams stop. When clock is done, they begin again.
  
• No maskers at the ball could go into the hall of velvet. In the other rooms, the beat of life continued.
  
• At midnight, the 12 strokes of the clock pretty much hypnotize the people. During that time, the people noticed a masked person. The figure was tall, shrouded head to toe with clothing from the grave, his mask was a skull. He looked as he was sprinkled with blood like "Red Death".
  
• When Prince sees him, he shudders, of terror & distaste. The prince orders from him to be unmasked. The prince goes up the figure & the figure stabs the prince with a daggar.
  
• The skulled-mask man was Red Death. He killed everyone who was at the party. The clock stopped working also.
  

Death: You can't cheat it. Nobody can.

Danse Macabre

---> "Dance of Death"
By Stephen King, an essay

• The unknown suspense and music are the scary parts of the story, they cause the heart to race
• The "bug behind the door" is the unknown and the relief

--> Allegory: a work with two layers of meaning where most of the persons, objects & events stand for abstract ideas or qualities.

Prince
Meaning: Life, living
Lesson: Hope

Abbey
Meaning: Safe place
Lesson: You can't hide from fate

Series of 7 Rooms
Meaning: Life, Black room means death
Lesson: Scenarios of life

Clock
Meaning: The time everyone had left to live
Lesson: Our days are numbered

Stranger
Meaning: Death for all
Lesson: Nobody can escape destiny

The Devil and Tom Walker

Setting: Deep inlet, winding through Charles Bay, dark grove, gigantic tree, Massachusetts

• Old stories tell of a pirate called Pirate Kidd who buried treasure under a big tree; people say the devil hid the money. Kidd never returned to the treasure because he was hung for being a pirate.
• 1727, Tom Walker and his wife; they are miserable together and cheat on each other. She is very secretive. They live in an old, abandoned, moss covered house.
• Tom's wife was fierce of temper, loud of tongue & strong of arm.
• One day Tom takes a shortcut home, through a swamp. There is an old Indian fort in the swamp. He stopped there to take a break from walking. He is about to sit on the ground when he sees something halfway buried in the ground. It is an old Indian axe, so he goes to pick it up. As he does, he hears a voice say, "Leave that skull alone."
  
• Tom looks up and sees a black man sitting not far from him. The man is neither black, nor Indian. His skin seems to be covered by soot.
  
• The ground they are on belongs to Deacon Peabody, but the Indian man says Peabody is dead so it's his land. The Indian does not feel bad for cutting down Peabody's timber.
  
• The man goes by various names; black miner, wild huntsman. He talks to the Quakers & Anabaptists.
• Tom thinks the man is Old Scratch who is talked about in old stories. The two talk for a long time and become friends.
  
• The man tells Tom of Kidd's treasure. The man owns the tree it is buried underneath. The man burns his thumb print in Tom's head before he part. (Showing he is the Devil)
• Tom goes home, tells his wife of the stories, and she wants to go and find Kidd's money. Tom tells her no, just to make her mad, so she sets off on her own to go find it.
  
• Stories came about of her going to the swamp. She spoke of the black man. Eventually she disappears in the swamp. Rumors of her death flared, but the most famous story was a man with an axe on his shoulder was seen coming out of the swamp carrying a bundle in an apron.
  
• Another rumor is that Tom goes in search of her. He is about to give up when he sees an apron and a vulture hanging in the tree. Tom retrieves the apron because it looks like his wife's. He unfolds the apron to reveal a heart and liver inside.
  
• Tom thinks the man helped him because his wife was dying. Tom wanted to give the man thanks.
• He sees the black man, they talk, say thanks & begin talking about the treasure again. Tom wants to give the money to a slave ship, but the man said no. The man says to open a broker's shop in Boston.
• Later, Tom begins to attend church, he still believes the devil has something in store for him. One day, Tom says he just wants the devil to take him. He goes a little insane. Just then, the devil appears on his doorstep on a black horse. The devil sweeps Tom away never to be seen again.
  

Gothic Literature Notes

Elements of Gothic Literature:

• Grotesque characters, bizarre situations & violent events
• Began in Europe
• Came into the United States in the 19th century
• Famous writers include Edgar Allan Poe & Hawthorne
• Age of reason, fear of Gods

Romanticism:
.Writers saw basic elements of nature, limitation of reason
.Celebrated the individual spirit
.Emotions
.Imagination
.Splendors of nature rather than the fear of God
.Fascination of Supernatural
.Washington Irving: Prominent writer in the United States

Transcendentalists:
.Forms of truth beyond reason and experience
.Every individual is capable of discovering this higher truth on his or her own through intuition." -Ralph Waldo Emerson

Dark Side of Individualism:
.Gothic architecture
.Gothic cathedrals
.High stained glass windows, gargoyles (Gothic mascot)
.Imaginative distortion of reality
.Shadowy, demonic region
.Gothic tradition can be called the Dark Side of Individualism
.Romantics looked at the individual and saw hope
.Gothic saw potential evil

Poe

• Many of his stories took place in Gothic castles, decaying ancient estates which provided a eerie setting for terrifying events
• Male characters are crazy
  
• Female characters are beautiful but usually dying or already dead
• Plots are extreme murders, crazy situations
• Live burials, physical and mental torture, retribution from the grave
• Romantics show the good side, the evil side is brought out by the Gothic
  

Hawthorne

• Examined human fear under many conditions: fear, vanity, mistrust, betrayal
  

The Crucible Acts

Act One:
You get introduced to the setting and many characters in the story. It is set in Salem, Massachuttes in the late 1600's. The town is ruled a little differently than most. It is called a theocracy. It is the ruling of God through religious officals; like priests. The town of Salem revolves around their church, which their town is run by.
The story starts off when you meet a girl named Betty Parris and her father Reverend Parris. Betty is unresponsive and isn't moving. Rumor is that Betty has been afflicted by witchcraft. Reverend Parris asks for the help of Reverend of John Hale, who is an expert on witchcraft, to come and help him figure out what is wrong with Betty for sure. You also meet Abigial Williams, one of Betty's friends. Reverend Parris questions her about what is wrong with Betty because he saw those two girls and many others dancing in the forest in the middle of the night. Reverend Parris' slave Tituba is also present in the forest. Abigial denies anyone who tries to accuse them all of witchcraft.
You then meet Thomas Putnam and his wife. Mr.Putnam's wife thinks she knows quite a bit about witchcraft and thinks she can help out Reverend Parris and Betty. You also meet two maids. Mercy Lewis and Mary Warren.
While all these people are walking into Betty's room, she wakes up screaming that she wants her mother. The strange part is that her mother is dead...(not until the end of the book does she snap out of it.)

Act Two:
You meet John Proctor and his wife Elizabeth. Whoever Abigail and her friends say is involved in witchcraft, is convicted of it. John Proctor knows that Abigail has been trying to get Elizabeth convicted of witchcraft because Abigail wants John Proctor all to herself. Him and her have had an affair before, but Abigail just can't seem to let go of him. Mary Warren lives with the Proctor's and one night when she comes home she gives Elizabeth a doll that she made during a witchcraft court ruling. John gets angry at Mary for continuting to attend the trials. But Mary has been defending Elizabeth in court when she was accused by Abigail.
John Hale shows up at the Proctor's house because he wants to talk to Elizabeth. Some of his men get a search warrent for their house and they ask Elizabeth if she owns any dolls. She admits to only having the one that belongs to Mary. The men find a pin stuck in the doll. It seems like voodoo because Abigail also stabbed herself in the same spot with a sharp object. Parris finds the needle and accuses Elizabeth of witchcraft. They take Elizabeth away to be trialed as being a witch.

Act Three:
Court is in session. Here is the twist. John Procotor and Mary show up where Mary claims the girls were all only pretending to be afflicted by witchcraft. Everyone is shocked. John Proctor is just trying to free his wife. The judge tells John that Elizabeth has to wait to be hung now because she claims to be pregnant, and will be killed after she delivers. The judge send for Abigail and the other girls. Abigail says that everything Mary has told them is a lie. All the girls begin to panic while they are being pressured by the judge to tell the truth and blame it on Mary by saying she sent a cold wind upon them.
Proctor now gets very angry with Abigail and calls her a whore. He admits to their affair. He says that Abigail is only blaming Elizabeth so that she will be hung and Abigail can take her place in John's heart. Abigail is now totally against Elizabeth and John Proctor and say that Mary is sending the devil at them through spirit. John tries to comfort Mary but she tells him that he in touch with the devil.

Act Four:
Parris has been put into jail. Reverend Hale nows feels guitly for accusing so many people of witchcraft. He tries to get the innocent released from jail but none will confess. All of the people of Salem are still terrified that if they do anything they will get accused of witchcraft.
Proctor goes and visits Elizabeth in jail. She tells him over one hundred people have confessed to witchcraft. He wonders if he should confess. He wants people to feel guilty for wanting to hang an innocent man if he confesses. He eventually decides to confess. John Proctor is then executed, Elizabeth goes on to remarry years later, Abigial becomes a prostitue, and the town of Salem seems to become empty.

Gothic Literature

Definition of Gothic Literature:
Gothic fiction (sometimes referred to as Gothic horror) is a genre of literature that combines elements of both horror and romance...

History of the word Gothic and Gothic Literature:
‘Gothic’ refers to a mode of fiction dealing with supernatural or horrifying events. However, not all Gothic literature is concerned with the supernatural, and not all Gothic literature is horrifying. Rather, the term ‘Gothic’ as applied to literature refers to a kind of atmosphere or aesthetic that is hard to define.

Gothic literature is generally believed to have begun in the year 1765 with the publication of The Castle of Otranto, by Horace Walpole. It should be noted that this novel was published in the 18th century, after the philosophical movement known as the Enlightenment had attempted to bring reason to the world, and to banish superstition.

It is said that the Gothic writings originated from Europe, or they would set their stories in Southern Europe. They say this because most gothic writers were Protestants. Catholicism was seen as a superstitious form of Christianity, therefore closer to barbarism.


The Castle of Otranto is about an Italian prince who schemes to avert the curse brought on his family when his grandfather usurped the principality of Otranto.

All top information came from: http://my.opera.com/quentinscrisp/blog/show.dml/11604


Characteristics of a Gothic work:
1. There is a victim who is hopeless against their torture.
2. There is a victimizer who is related with the evil and who's powers are accused to be supernatural.
3. The setting of the gothic story is at some point within impenetrable walls (physical or psychological) to heighten the victim's sense of hopeless isolation. The central gothic image is the cathedral or a haunted mansion within the walls which the victim is impristioned.
4. The setting is of mystery, darkness, and fear.
5. The victim is in awe of how powerful the victimizer is.

Romanticism has very little to do with things popularly thought of as "romantic," although love may occasionally be the subject of Romantic art. Rather, it is an international artistic and philosophical movement that redefined the fundamental ways in which people in Western cultures thought about themselves and about their world. It was partly a revolt against aristocratic social and political norms of the Age of Enlightenment and a reaction against the scientific rationalization of nature, and was embodied most strongly in the visual arts, music, and literature.One of the fundamentals of Romanticism is the belief in the natural goodness of man, the idea that man in a state of nature would behave well but is hindered by civilization.


Characteristics of Romanticism:
Resulting in part from the libertarian and egalitarian ideals of the French Revolution, the romantic movements had in common only a revolt against the prescribed rules of classicism. The basic aims of romanticism were various: a return to nature and to belief in the goodness of humanity; the rediscovery of the artist as a supremely individual creator; the development of nationalistic pride; and the exaltation of the senses and emotions over reason and intellect. In addition, romanticism was a philosophical revolt against rationalism.

(Enlightenment is a term used to describe a time in Western philosophy and cultural life centered upon the eighteenth century, in which reason was advocated as the primary source and legitimacy for authority.)